America: The Godfather Game Development, Chapter 454
In the monitoring room, Wynn sat on a soft sofa, silently staring at the data monitoring panel, which was even more exaggerated than that of a quantitative company.
This is the heart of The Mirage, controlling the flow of Fortune across much of Las Vegas.
However, at this moment, his gaze was completely focused on an inconspicuous small panel in the corner.
That's the newly established monitoring area for Diablo -related data.
Since the first day, not a single machine here has been empty.
Those players would rather eat, drink, and relieve themselves right there on the spot.
As it turns out, the time-based payment system did not dampen their enthusiasm; on the contrary, it provided these fanatics with a more flexible payment option.
Many people choose to drive for several days straight, simply staying in front of the machine and refusing to leave.
For this purpose, he even specially arranged for someone to set up a temporary fast food stall and beverage delivery service on this floor.
These value-added services alone have already recouped the initial costs in just a few days.
Not to mention that after their frenzy, many of these guys will choose to rent a room and stay there.
In total, the cost of accommodation, food, games, and his main business income has already...
It was firmly tied here.
The most terrifying thing is that, for the entire Diablo -related area, the only money he needs to pay is for electricity and hardware maintenance.
That's an incredibly lucrative business; it's almost too exaggerated.
However, Wynn, who had spoken extensively with Lin Lixin, knew very well that this was just the beginning.
This was just another ordinary test among Lin Lixin's countless experiments.
He's conducting market research and technology validation for things that will truly be extraordinary in the future.
Only when his grand promises actually come true will the world truly realize just how terrifying the consumer potential of video games really is.
He stared quietly at the constantly fluctuating data on the screen.
It took him a while to stand up.
"Just maintain the status quo, gather a few decent players, and organize some game events, like rewarding whoever is the first to get a specific piece of equipment with a certain amount of game time in dollars."
"Yes!"
"Okay, you guys figure out the arrangements. I'm going back to play some games."
Wynn waved his hand and headed towards his suite.
He's always been an expert when it comes to gambling.
And unsurprisingly, he guessed right this time too.
And it's a perfect match.
Lin Lixin had just shown him a future market that might contain billions of years of revenue.
Now all that's left is for Gamenova to cultivate it.
Meanwhile, Lin Lixin had already ended the celebration banquet at Blizzard and rushed back to headquarters.
The reason is simple: Sony's first offensive has arrived!
Hmm... that sounds a bit imprecise.
Because the products Sony released this time have virtually nothing to do with video games.
Third floor, inside the hardware department.
Lin Lixin and Mark Cerny faced the small, cute black box on the table, both with serious expressions on their faces.
Sony's industrial design capabilities are truly astonishing.
Lin Lixin carefully examined every detail of the small box, hoping to deduce the original thoughts of the person who developed it.
This is a Discman.
One of Sony's many product lines, and currently one of the most valuable.
Its mission is quite obvious.
Just like how Gamenova launched 16-bit arcade games to take over the 8-bit era.
The Discman was created to become the next generation of Walkman.
That's right, it's a portable music player, a portable music player that can read CDs!
In fact, Discman has been around for several years.
However, this year's model is completely different from those of the past.
This is the D-99, the first version to use a 1-bit DAC circuit.
They randomly pulled out a CD and stuffed it in, then stood silently to one side, waiting for this thing to display its magical properties.
After a while, music started playing from the wired headphones.
Cool and dry sound quality with a strong digital feel.
To be honest, its sound quality isn't particularly outstanding; it even sounds a bit dry and lacks any sense of depth or fullness.
However, both of them present were leaders in the hardware field, so they were naturally able to see through the surface and understand the real intricacies that deserved serious attention.
"It's that 1-bit DAC—they solved the DAC distortion problem."
Whether it's the Walkman, the Discman, or a Gamenova handheld console.
All audio devices suffer from the same problem.
Linear distortion at low levels.
The subtle melodies hidden within the music, the unique reverberations, the natural sense of airiness—these are all very easy to distort with current semiconductor technology.
This is not a problem with the sound quality itself.
In fact, during recording, the studio environment provided an absolutely top-notch auditory experience.
The real problem lies with the DAC.
To be precise, it stems from digital music itself.
Digital music differs from traditional media like vinyl records; it cannot store analog signals, and everything is composed of binary 0s and 1s.
To play digital information stored in flash memory or on a CD, anyone would need to find a way to translate it.
And that's where DAC's task lies.
The system receives signals, converts them into precise voltages, and then outputs them to the device to reproduce the music.
And that's where the problem lies!
This thing is so inaccurate. As the resistors age, the DAC will become increasingly difficult to use and less and less accurate.
The end result is various forms of distortion.
This is indeed a very troublesome problem that GAMENOVA has always faced.
To solve this problem, Lin Lixin chose to ignore it for the time being.
The reason is simple: in 8-bit and 16-bit environments, there aren't actually that many so-called low-voltage melodies in music.
law".
More often than not, the game's music consists of sharp, high-pitched sounds.
But that doesn't mean the issue isn't important.
As music takes up an increasingly larger proportion of GAMENOVA's works, this problem is becoming more and more apparent.
The same applies to other manufacturers.
And the Discman-D99 in front of us is Sony's answer.
"Indeed, a brilliant idea—and top-notch industrial design."
Sony is indeed very good at these things.
Cerny nodded noncommittally.
As a double-agent who had worked in Japan for many years, he was well aware of Sony's size and influence there.
It's practically the emperor of consumer electronics in Japan.
A 1-bit DAC – that's Sony's answer.
The principle is very simple, and it doesn't use any advanced technology, yet it's absolutely ingenious.
Isn't the DAC prone to accuracy issues and distortion due to aging?
Then let's just stop it from outputting complex voltage levels.
Instead, it was changed to a circuit with only 1 bit.
That's right, it's not an upgrade to 16-bit, nor is it an upgrade to 32-bit; it's a direct regression to 1-bit.
This means that this thing can only output a signal with two possible results: 0 and 1, and cannot express the existence of a third possibility.
This means that it no longer has the ability to output precise voltage; it only has 0V and 1V.
"Sigma-Delta DAC uses high-frequency pulses to transmit signals."
Lin Lixin picked up the machine and carefully examined its external design.
The benefits of a 1-bit DAC are obvious.
Lower power consumption, fewer transistors, smaller size----
Every single one of these is what Discman needs.
It's easy to guess that miniaturization is the main direction Sony is currently pushing.
Just plug in two batteries, and you can listen anytime, anywhere, with CD-quality sound!
This is indeed a top-tier auditory experience that neither the NP nor the NS can achieve.
"That really is a case of using minimal force to achieve maximum effect!"
Even Lin Lixin had to admit that Sony's assembly capabilities were impressive.
This piece of junk isn't actually that technologically advanced.
The truly valuable part is the core optical disc drive.
Essentially, its chips are all outdated and junk.
But Sony managed to create a trendy and fashionable product from these junk items.
That's really impressive.
"It seems that we will have no rivals in the portable music player field for many years to come."
Cerny echoed this sentiment.
Entering the market too late, the Walkman market is now too mature and stagnant.
Users tend to have habits.
GAMENOVA and Sony have completely different design languages.
To get users accustomed to Sony's style to switch to Gamenova, they'll need to offer something truly irresistible.
Otherwise, users who are used to Sony, even if they tolerate and forgive some of the shortcomings of their products, will not be willing to switch easily.
Fortunately, Sony only occupied this one market segment; other areas were still firmly controlled by Gamenova.
Unexpectedly, Lin Lixin directly denied Cerny's words.
"Oh? You're wrong then. Sony's good days in the music industry are coming to an end."
"Huh? Why?"
Cerny was taken aback, not understanding why Lin Lixin would say that.
With hundreds of millions of units sold, the Waikman is already a dead insect that doesn't die easily.
As long as they continue to iterate on their new products, Sony can theoretically sit firmly on its throne without having to worry about anything.
"Because of this."
Lin Lixin flipped through the papers and picked up an inconspicuous little circuit board.
Cerny recognized this; it was a hardware codec chip that MicroNova had recently customized for Diablo.
"To be precise, it's this idea."
Seeing that Cerny still seemed a little confused, Lin Lixin took the initiative to explain, "Don't you think people these days are a bit too... conservative when it comes to compression algorithms?"
How so?
"The pursuit of lossless compression and the desire to compress files to the extreme without losing the original data is not wrong; lossless compression is often necessary. But think about it carefully: can music really not accept lossy compression?"
"Uh? But wouldn't that reduce sound quality?"
"Don't overestimate your ears, Cerny."
Lin Lixin pointed to his ear, "It's not as smart as you think. With just a little trick, we can compress the data on a CD to one-tenth of its original size."
As he spoke, Lin Lixin casually picked up a handheld game cartridge, peeled off its plastic casing, and revealed the black flash memory chip inside.
"And by then, this thing will be enough to store music."